Brief Description: Continued Working on Canopy Frame
Bolted gas struts to the fuselage. Installed 1/8" thick cardboard to match longeron contour With help from Denise, rotated canopy frame down to closed position. Rechecked front bow clearance to instrument panel and spent a lot of time trying to adjust and get 7/16" gap along entire bow. I found it very difficult to get the same dimension along the entire length - adjusting on one side changes the other side. Using a piece of wood trimmed as a gauge to 7/16", the gap on the passenger side using the gauge is loose and the gap on the pilot side is tight. May have to go back and address. Also spent a lot of time, with Denise's help, adjusting the 1/8'" gap between the canopy frame and F-1234 canopy decks (frame touching cardboard). Finally got that setup correctly and in good shape. Verified that forward arms of canopy frame clear the upper fuselage skin. Finally, installed C-1211 align blocks and clamped. Note in figure 2 was confusing - the dimension arrows show distance between forward surface of aft bow and forward surface of roll bar. Note says "1 7/32 (AFT SURFACE OF FRAME TO FORWARD SURFACE OF ROLL BAR)". I'm sure that the note is wrong but will veirfy with Van's before installing canopy. Page 34-03 is complete.
Update (2/17/12): Received an email from Van's that the drawings are correct. The aft surface of the canopy bow is where the meaurement is taken, not the front surface. Will need to go "inside" the bow and then measure to the forward face of the roll bar.
Aligned C-1203A and C-1203B attach angles with inside edge of canopy frame and match drilled. Unclecoed and deburred. (page 34-04, steps 2 and part of 3). Realized that I didn't account for the 1/32" overlap of the canopy frame at the outer edges for the canopy skirt (see page 34-04, Sections A-A and B-B). Plan is to remove cardboard and lay the skirt against frame and see if frame needs to be further adjusted. Save that for another day.
Drilled and tapped C-656 canopy handle to WD-1218 canopy latch. Distance between lat
